The teenage baby boom in Gloucester, Massachusetts

One Year On: Mysterious spate of teenage pregnancies shook one isolated American town

The story really began at the monthly committee meeting at Gloucester High, a school in Massachusetts with 1,200 pupils. Around the table, along with the other business of the day - school food, parking, litter - someone raised the thorny issue of teenage pregnancy: "We really need to talk about the daycare centre. We're licensed by the state to take seven children and we have 10 girls pregnant at the school right now..."

The reaction in the room was incendiary. The norm was maybe three or four unplanned pregnancies across the age groups per year. In March, 10 girls in the 10th grade were pregnant; by April, the figure had risen to 15. By June, as school broke for the summer, there were 18 pregnancies. The principal, Joseph Sullivan, announced that he believed there was "a clique who may have entered into a pact". That extraordinary statement was picked up by Time